THE CRUNCH
Google has announced its first data centre in Wyoming, a long-term $17 billion investment in Laramie County. The project is a partnership with Tallgrass Energy, Black Hills Energy, American Electric Power and Related Digital, and Google says it will create thousands of jobs while funding local education and infrastructure.
Power will come from a contracted, first-of-its-kind commercial-scale 702 MW fuel cell development with carbon capture and storage, which Google describes as the largest planned development of its kind. Fuel cells convert natural gas into electricity through an electrochemical reaction, and the units will be made in America by Bloom Energy. Captured carbon is to be permanently stored underground at Tallgrass's nearby Eastern Wyoming Sequestration Hub, taking Google's total contracted CCS capacity to nearly 1 gigawatt.
The company also says it will source power from gas generators run by Tallgrass and Black Hills Energy, and is running a front-end engineering study on adding carbon capture to Tallgrass's combined cycle turbines. On water, the facility will be air-cooled to limit strain on local supplies, and Google has committed to paying for 100% of the power it uses and covering infrastructure needs directly driven by its growth.
Community engagement has already shaped the project's framing. After a Cheyenne meeting with more than 200 Laramie County residents, Google expects the project to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in local property taxes for Laramie County and School District 1, alongside grants for STEM education, entrepreneurship and skilled trades training. Google and its partners are also standing up a Community Council to address a wider concern raised by residents: how data centre growth overall is affecting Cheyenne.